Mail Bonding: The Hud-dog abides

Project 88 began when Keith Sharon bought a 1950s era Smith-Corona 88 typewriter on eBay. Eighty-eight is the number of characters it produces. KATE LUCAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

MAIL ME A LETTER:

Project 88 began when I bought a 1950s era Smith-Corona 88 typewriter on eBay. Eighty-eight is the number of characters it produces. If you are so inspired, write to me. If you use a typewriter, great. If not, use a computer, a pen, a quill or a chisel and slate. The point is to communicate. Try to avoid angry topics (maintaining civility is the only way this will work), and I'll try to write back.

My mailing address:

Keith Sharon

Orange County Register

625 N. Grand Ave.

Santa Ana, CA 92701

MAIL ME A LETTER:

I saw a great movie recently called “The Way Way Back,” about a kid trapped awkwardly on vacation in a beach town. The kid doesn’t fit in until he is befriended by this older wisecracking, irreverent guy, played brilliantly by Sam Rockwell.

I got a letter recently from my Sam Rockwell.

His name is Rich Hudson, and we called him “Hud-dog,” or, with more reverence, “The Dog.” But he had several nicknames. If you called him “Marty,” he would answer to that. To this day, I have no idea why. On weeknights, after we put the Cerritos College newspaper (the coolly named “Talon Marks”) to bed, we would head over to a bar called “The Foxy Lady” to drink beer and chase girls. On those nights, we called him “Steve.”

The Dog was the founder (along with his similarly Hawaiian-shirted compadre Fred Goff) of the “Steve Club,” in which, if you were a member, you would be called Steve in local bars so that your wildly inappropriate behavior would not be credited to your real name. If you laughed as much as I laughed with The Dog and Fred and Tater and Flash and Simmons and Riff and the rest of the Steve Club, then you, too, had a great junior college experience.

I don’t know how old he was, but legend has it that it took him seven years to complete junior college, which he didn’t begin until several years after he left high school.

It was the early 1980s. He had a beard and stains on his shirt. He quoted “Caddyshack” and “Animal House” so often it became sublime. He once helped expose a counterfeiting ring AND covered the Miss Nude International contest in the same school year.

The Dog seemed to exist (and I’m sure many of you remember your first experience with people like him) beyond the world of authority. He was my first classmate who didn’t seem to come from a family, didn’t operate under the rules of his parents. He seemed to float through Cerritos College without regard for class schedules, or decorum.

My friend Wayne Wurzer and I, both pretty straight-laced kids, watched him closely. The Dog helped us learn how to enjoy irreverence and revel in making authority figures uncomfortable – two skills that have served me well in 30 years as a journalist.

“To me, those were the glory days,” he wrote. “It was a time of unrestrained ambition and a zest for life.”

I lost touch with The Dog over the years. Whatever happens to guys like The Dog?

“The innocence of youth slowly gives way to the realization that life is gift,” he wrote. “Life is fragile. It is precious. We are not bullet proof. We go but for the grace of God. For me, that realization hit home on June 9, 2009 when my doctor told me: ‘If you don’t quit drinking, you will be dead in six months.’”

The Dog had battled booze for years. But he was able to stop drinking.

He also was diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis, an inflammation of the spinal cord. He landed in a wheelchair. As his health deteriorated, The Dog began reaching out to old friends. He connected with me and Wayne on Facebook. He told us about how he was trying to walk again.

The Dog was able to get healthy, but our friend Wayne was not. Wayne was ravaged by cancer. Wayne and The Dog exchanged emails for more than two years with Wayne offering support for our once out-of-control mentor.

Wayne wrote: “Hud-dog, sorry to hear about your health struggles. Sounds like a nasty little disease but also sounds like you aren't taking it lying down! Still some fight left in the Dog, eh?”

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